Can Search Save YouTube?
January 26, 2010
YouTube.com has been a topic of conversation here at the goose pond today. Several of the goslings commented about the redesign. Another pointed out that the search function was a hit-and-miss affair. I described a couple of patent documents such as US2006/0080238 that I thought were designed to give Google’s grassroots media video service some lift (as in pants on the ground). I don’t think search can save YouTube.com. Money can.
Finding pants on the ground was easy. It’s not so easy finding some other videos.
When I read “You Tube Is Doomed Guy Refuses to Admit He Was Wrong (But YouTube No Longer Doomed”, I learned that YouTube.com is going to become a pay-per-view operation. The story in Silicon Alley Insider suggests that Google will emulate the Hulu.com model.
The write up presents a summary of some conflicting or maybe just fluid information about the profitability of the YouTube.com service. Google bought YouTube.com in 2006 at about the same time it was working out a deal with dMarc and lifting some other rich media barbells in the Google gymnasium.
The key passage for me was:
Google never figured out how to get advertisers excited about millions of people’s home videos. Benjamin [critic of YouTube.com and CEO of Fliqz.com] thinks Google will continue to chase after premium content, making the site more like Hulu. He also thinks eventually, Google could charge a small fee to upload video to the site. In other words, YouTube isn’t doomed.
The guts of the article is an interview with Benjamin Wayne, Fliqz and it is worth reading.
The goslings and I were uncertain about YouTube.com. On one hand, it seems to have some challenges in the search department. Finding a video is often most easily accomplished looking for a link in a write up, not by searching for a video. The ads are indeed annoying, and these may have disappointed both Google and the folks buying ads on YouTube.com videos. On the other hand, does the world need another for-fee video site. These seem to be predicated on the same assumptions one finds in the eBook reader sector. More may not yield a bigger revenue pie.
What is Google’s play in rich media? Perhaps Google has matured sufficiently to realize that there are other business models, but these may not lend themselves to the Googley style of management. Management, not emulating Hulu.com or some other for fee rich media service, may be the deciding factor for YouTube.com.
Stephen E Arnold, January 26, 2010
A freebie. Someone promised to pay me a pittance in the future, but that faint assertion had nothing to do with the plight of YouTube.com.
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